Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Inked Maori Energy Drink Review


Here it is, a new Inked flavour exclusively at 7-11....but wait a minute! Wasn't there a Maori before? If I recall correctly, it was Maori Citrus, and that got pulled off the shelves more than a year ago. Well, the name has made a comeback with a mango flavour. Since this is a new product at 7-11, there was a buy 1, get 1 free promotion and I got two cans of this for $2.69 CAD. Not a bad price to get people to try this new energy drink.

The energy drink has an inviting mango aroma, but with a touch of sweet cough syrup. The taste is not bad either. It starts off as a mango/citrus blend with a touch of passion fruit with the two main flavours alternating as you gulp down the beverage. The passion fruit taste comes and goes, but it adds something to the overall enjoyment of this beverage. The finish is sweet and also a citrus/mango combination. Unlike the aroma, there are no traces of cough syrup or any other unpleasantries in the taste. As I kept drinking, more of the beverage revealed itself to me. After I had about a third of the can, the sweetness had built up to the point that the drink tasted like a piece of hard mango candy. Some of citric acid started to make its presence known by giving the finish and aftertaste a sour bite. This, in my opinion, made the drink even better. After I finished the can, it hit me. This, being made by Cott beverages, has a heavy Red Rain influence with its citric bite and citrusy taste. I am going to go ahead and call this the best Inked flavour. If you haven't noticed it at 7-11, go to the nearest store and get a couple of cans.

Like the other Inked energy drinks, this one contains 150 mg of caffeine, which puts it right in the middle of the 473 mL war zone, but since it is priced lower than most of the other ones, I am sure it will win some battles. I started to get a buzz, probably from all the sugar, in about 15 - 20 minutes after starting to consume the beverage. At that point I was already down about a can. I gulped the second half of the can real quick since I had to focus on some work I was doing and the caffeine catapulted me to a different energy level. Of course, this caffeine rush came with its dose of jitters which lasted for about 15 minutes. I don't know if it is the long sleep I got last night, or this energy drink, but I felt like running laps for hours. I got a good 3 hours out of this drink and did not experience a sudden crash at the end, but I did get tired once I had used up all the caffeine. Nothing some tea...er...a lot of tea couldn't fix. The bottom line is, this is the best Inked energy drink on the market today.

Medicinal Ingredients:
  • Taurine - 1,890 mg
  • D-Glucuronolactone - 1,130 mg
  • Caffeine - 150 mg
  • Inositol - 69 mg
  • Niacin - 37 mg
  • Pantothenic acid - 9 mg
  • Vitamin B6 - 9 mg
  • Vitamin B12 - 9 mcg
Non-Medicinal Ingredients: carbonated water, sugar/glucose-fructose, citric acid, sodium citrate, natural flavour, potassium benzoate, colour.

Scores:
Cost - $2.69 for 2 cans thanks to a 7-11 promotion
Taste - 8.5/10
Energy - 7.9/10

Overall - 16.4/20...best Inked energy drink on the market today, worth the money

Read about the other Inked flavours:

4 comments:

  1. When will companies learn to make sure their marketing and sales teams are doing their job properly. Using Maori to market a product without the proper concent is unacceptable. Maori ciggeretts and a game which used maori Ta moko incorrectly have been taken off the market based on intellectual property. Ink should do the same. Although Inked probably have full knowledge of what they are doing, if they don't sell this drink here in NZ.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Whats the connection? mango is not a maori fruit. Is it just because maori have a history of cultural tattoos? If thats the case it could be inked samoa, or japanese.

    ReplyDelete
  3. I guess there changing the cans look and how much of stuff is in it. I guess I had this long ago but found one flav of inked and the can is way different. It has a spider on it for the mango flavour and the caffeine on can is 151mg. Also the vitamins and mabye some other stuff might be in higher amounts. So mabye the other flavours are getting some changes as well I dunno,when the 7-11 I was at only had mango cans with a spider on them.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You are right. 7-11 has changed can designs a few times and have added/removed flavours from the market. You might be referring to the redesign of the mango or perhaps a different flavour I have never tried. Time are always changing friend.

      Delete